I installed BLAG 70K on my new ACER Aspire 5315 a few days ago. Not bad and I am very happy to use a wholly free distro with it instead of Ubuntu 7.10, that was my first option to replace that Vista thing, which was shipped with the machine.

The problem is, even using the newest kernel in BLAG's repositories (the truly-free 2.6.24.2.1-1blag.f7) I can't make to work the sound card nor the wifi card. Also, I can't connect to the Internet using the regular ethernet port, while using this newest kernel ( for what I have seen using ifconfig and the gnome network applications, only the local loop interface is configured).

For what I have read while googling, it is all pretty new hardware, so I find quite normal not to have much support except from the newest kernel which, possibly is crippled with many proprietary bits.
I don't mind not using the wifi card, but I hope the sound problem is not due to a binary-only issue in the kernel.

I have tried various possibilities that I have found over the Net, but they are all for Debian based distros and I find myself a bit lost in a RedHat derived distro like this, in order to apply them. Also, it may well be that those solutions would depend on binary blobs.

I installed BLAG 70K on my new ACER Aspire 5315 a few days ago. Not bad and I am very happy to use a wholly free distro with it instead of Ubuntu 7.10, that was my first option to replace that Vista thing, which was shipped with the machine.

Nice thx :)

harmattan wrote:

The problem is, even using the newest kernel in BLAG's repositories (the truly-free 2.6.24.2.1-1blag.f7) I can't make to work the sound card nor the wifi card. Also, I can't connect to the Internet using the regular ethernet port, while using this newest kernel ( for what I have seen using ifconfig and the gnome network applications, only the local loop interface is configured).

Not sure about this one in particular, but it may use the tg3 driver which may be broken in -libre kernel. Upstream from Linus it ships with proprietary firmware that isn't /required/ to use the card. I tried to remove the blob but leave the card still usable, but I don't think i've succeeded in that yet (gnewsense just yanks the whole driver).

For what I have read while googling, it is all pretty new hardware, so I find quite normal not to have much support except from the newest kernel which, possibly is crippled with many proprietary bits.I don't mind not using the wifi card, but I hope the sound problem is not due to a binary-only issue in the kernel.

I would guess if it isn't in the ALSA that's in BLAG it is probably supported in the very latest ALSA releases upstream from them or will be supported RSN.

and then add 'options snd-hda-intel model=acer' to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base'

Maybe It is needed something like this in BLAG's kernel(s)?

Ya, that sounds like a generic kernel option, nothing blag specific. Try adding it to /etc/modprobe.conf. There should be a snd-hda-intel line there already. So system-config-soundcard finds it ok? What does mplayer say when you try to play something?

harmattan wrote:

As for the wifi, I will try to search carefully through your links and do some tests next weekend.

The summary of this is that it still isn't working (in the eeepc) in mickflemm's -test3 yet either.

Following your advice I added 'options snd-hda-intel model=acer' to /etc/modprobe.conf, so the sound, at last, works with the 2.6.24-libre kernel (not the other one).
Before that, neither Mplayer ( invoked from the console) nor system-config-soundcards showed any sign of error, except that no sound at all went out of the speakers, of course :-)
Sadly, if I want to surf the web I still have to restart the laptop, in order to use 2.6.22.9-91-fc7 to make the ethernet work.

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